Wireless charging has been advancing in quality and popularity recently. It allows you to charge your smartphone without plugging it in. Instead, you place it face up on the wireless charging device, and the simple touch of the two devices will charge your phone. If you’re always losing or breaking your wire chargers, then it should be great for you. It’s sleek, and seems more efficient, but is it really?

Wireless charging can be beneficial when it comes to driving. If you have directions on your phone and you need to keep it charged while still being able to see it, then wireless charging stands will help you out a lot. And in some of the more pricey cars like BMW’s, there are wireless charging stations built into the storage compartments next to the driver’s seat, which isn’t as handy since you can’t see the phone.

But driving is really the only time it comes in handy. Other times it just seems to get in the way more. If you’re just chilling at home, lying on your couch, then wireless charging is inefficient. It can be clunky and hard to hold if it’s not lying on a table. This brings another aspect into play: mobility. Wireless charging only works if your phone is directly touching the charger, so if you don’t have a wireless charging-friendly case, then your phone is more vulnerable. Wire chargers are small and easy to bend and move around to your liking so you can be comfortable while charging your phone. Meanwhile, wireless chargers can really only stay in certain places.

Logic also comes into play here, given that your wireless charger still needs to be plugged in or charged to work, which defeats the whole point of the term ‘wireless’. Yes, it’s harder to lose, but you’re also spending more money on something that you already have. On the Apple website, a lighting cable costs about 19 dollars, but the lowest price for a wireless charger is about 30 dollars, and that for an apple watch, not an iPhone. 

Wireless charging can be very beneficial to certain people, but to most, it can be clunky and gets in the way of phone use. So is wireless charging really worth the extra money?